


Gotta Roll with the Punches

by ashenpages



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Big Sisters, Blindness, Boyfriends, Established Relationship, M/M, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashenpages/pseuds/ashenpages
Summary: Aranea is all for helping Ignis reclaim his combat training, but did he have to bring his lunkhead boyfriend with him to sparring practice?





	Gotta Roll with the Punches

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth part in a collection of stand alone fics. If it gets difficult to follow the timeline, let me know and I'll do something about it!

Aranea Highwind had only really known Gladio Amicitia for about ten minutes, but she was already sick of him.

She’d gotten to know Ignis, the broody king-to-be Noctis, and the sunspot that was Prompto before the word had gone topsy-turvy through mutually beneficial conditions. Those conditions had included a need to get into the same set of ruins and the party being down their usual defensive front line. From what she’d picked up between Ignis’s carefully worded comments and Noctis’s bitching, said front line had gone off to prove how macho he was in some “king’s shield test,” whatever that was. Honestly, she didn’t see why they’d needed Gladio then, and she definitely didn’t see why Ignis wanted him now.

“Listen, buddy,” Aranea said, regarding the accusing finger Gladio had aimed between her eyes and using a tone that distinctly said they were by no means buddies. “You need to step back.” She focused her eyes on Gladio’s and gave him a sarcastic smile. “If Ignis is ever going to really hunt demons again and wants to keep with the fashionable amount of scarring he already has, he needs actual training, not the coddling you think I should give him.”

Gladio dropped his hand and leaned in towards her, getting in her face. He was close enough she could smell his breath—vegetal with citrus. No surprise there, based on the salad Ignis had brought Aranea as thanks for helping him train. She wished he’d left the boyfriend at home, though.

“You need to go slower with him,” Gladio told her. His tone was low, threatening.

Aranea snorted and raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

Gladio’s eyes narrowed. “You heard me, lady.” He thrust out his chin and looked down his nose at her—an impressive feat for a man that matched Aranea centimeter for centimeter when she wasn’t wearing her enhanced Lancer boots.

Aranea tried to stifle her belittling smile from the perch of her extra two inches and failed. She placed her hand in front of her mouth, cleared her throat, then tossed her head in Ignis’s direction, pointedly looking at him, not Gladio. “Hey, pretty boy,” she said, addressing Ignis. She’d started calling him that in the watery ruins they’d first met in, and it had stuck. “We going too fast with your training?”

Ignis rose from his seat on the ground—the place he’d landed after Aranea had thrown him just before muscle-headed lover-boy got his stupid tattoo feathers in a tizzy. Ignis opened his mouth to reply, only to be instantly cut off.

“Don’t pull that,” Gladio yelled. “This isn’t about what he thinks he can do!”

Aranea’s mouth twisted into a scrunched, annoyed knot. “And here I was under the impression he wanted to learn to fight again.” She raised her hand to her mouth in a sarcastic mockery of surprise.

Gladio growled.

Aranea flexed her fingers around the shaft of her lance.

The tense atmosphere between them grew.

“You are both aware that ‘he’ can speak for himself.” Ignis strode slowly toward them, hands in his pockets, the only calm one among them.

Aranea dropped her attitude. How foolish to get swept up in posturing when this was about bringing Ignis up, not tearing his idiot boyfriend down. She’d mock Gladio till the coeurls came home, but she respected Ignis.

“Right,” she said, giving Ignis an auditory response. She dropped her lance back to her side and pulled back from Gladio. Even though Ignis couldn’t see anymore, his hearing was impeccable. He would hear the apology in her voice, the way she shifted her feet, the small catches of her armor as it moved in the joints and seams. It was amazing to see him take those things and learn to fight with them at all—but Aranea knew what he wanted. Ignis had been acrobatic when she had fought with him. He was no lancer, but he flew. Up, down, springing off his pole-arm, throwing his daggers as he tumbled backwards out of reach… He had been a whirlwind. Now, he was a forceful breeze at best. He needed to figure out how to roll, run, and slide before he could even hope to jump a meter off the ground without losing his balance and falling over. His sight had kept him level, let him live in the air without worrying about where he came down—because he could see it! He needed to know what soft earth smelled, felt, and sounded like so he wouldn’t misstep. He needed to know the metallic taste of rock on his tongue, what the damp, impeding grit of sand felt like in the air, before his feet touched the ground. He needed to learn it all, or he’d never fly again like he wanted to.

And, dammit, Aranea would see him to what he wanted! She would have him hovering in that moment of weightlessness at the apex of a jump, just before coming down and raining hell on his enemies. She would have him remember what flight like that tasted like.

“Iggy, you’ve always been good at words, but this?” Gladio threw his hands up and made a noise of frustration. “You’re not ready! You’re gonna get yourself hurt.”

Ignis’s body language was a subtle thing, but a thing Aranea had learned swiftly while fighting beside him. Knowing it now enraged her as she watched Ignis’s shoulders drop, his level gaze falter towards the ground infinitesimally.

That was it.

Aranea seized Gladio by the collar of his tank and swung him away from Ignis. “You’re the one that’s gonna get him hurt,” she hissed.

Gladio’s eyes were clear and wide open with surprise. He sucked in a sharp breath. “I would never…” His eyes flicked back to Ignis, but Aranea put herself between them, blocking the man from Gladio’s view.

“You think he doesn’t know the risks? You think he’s doing this for kicks, big man?” She threw Gladio back. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for him. You don’t get to tell him what to do. He doesn’t belong to you.”

“He doesn’t belong to anyone!” Gladio bellowed.

“He belongs to himself!”Aranea shouted, bringing her lance up between them. She held Gladio’s eyes with hers for a tense moment, then laughed and dropped her lance. She placed the point on the ground and leaned on the shaft. “You think you can say these things, just because you fuck him every night, but you’re—”

Three things happened then. The first was the shift in Gladio’s expression. The second was the cock of his elbow, chambering for a blow. The third was Ignis’s gloved hand appearing in front of Aranea’s nose.

Ignis pushed Aranea back with one hand, using the smooth force of the motion to trade places with her. He caught Gladio’s wrist with his other hand. Then he twisted.

Gladio fell.

Ignis followed him, sinking into a graceful kneel. All the way down, he maintained the lock he’d put the bigger man’s wrist into.

Aranea blinked, surprised. “Well,” she said. She shifted, and looked down at the prone Gladio. She smirked at him, her pride in Ignis turning the expression almost kind. “How much more proof do you need that he’s ready to learn to do this?”

Gladio huffed from the ground. He tipped his face towards Ignis. Aranea looked too.

Ignis was still as stone, but poised. Every part of him seemed alert—feral, even. Ready to strike at a moment’s notice. His grip on Gladio’s arm made the flesh under Ignis’s hand pale from the strength of it.

“That’s enough now,” Ignis said softly.

“H-how?” Gladio asked.

Aranea softened and stepped back. At the end of the day, they were still sickeningly and adorably in love with each other. Aranea was never going to be the one to get through to Gladio. It was always going to be Ignis.

“Practice,” Ignis murmured.

Gladio groaned and set a hand over his eyes. He squeezed the bridge of his nose, like he didn’t want to take in what Ignis was telling him.

“You have to let me do this,” Ignis said.

Gladio let his breath out slowly. He inhaled again; a measured breath, calmer than his breathing had been since Aranea had knocked Ignis down at the start of this. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said finally.

“I’m already hurt, Gladio.” Ignis took off his visor with his free hand. He blinked slowly. Aranea had always thought his eyes were startlingly clear for a blind man, but it was the scars he hid behind his visor she knew he wanted Gladio to see. “You can’t protect me from everything. And I won’t sit in some ivory tower while you take on the world yourself—” Gladio’s breath hitched. Ignis’s mouth shifted into a fond, melancholy smile. He dipped his mouth to the inside of Gladio’s captive wrist. “Despite how capable you may be of doing just that.”

Gladio flushed and covered his mouth with his free hand.

Alright, that was enough of the mooshy-gooshy. Aranea cupped her mouth and jeered, “Ooooh, somebody loooooves youuuuu.”

Ignis made a small noise of surprise and flushed himself.

Gladio kicked at Aranea.

She danced away laughing. She jumped up into the air when they came after her, and crash back down after Ignis threw his first dagger. Gladio brought his shield up before she connected. She back flipped off of it to strike at his legs. Ignis caught her in the middle with the blunt end of his polearm and tossed her away before her lance could connect. Aranea tumbled to her feet, and raised her lance again—grinning. She gave a battle cry and rushed them.

They came at her together. Gladio seemed less interested in complaining about the level of Ignis’s training when he was there to fight by his side. She was breathing hard by the end of the match, but if all it took was a little extra effort to make Ignis fly again, then it was worth it. Hell, maybe she’d even learn to tolerate Gladio. Ignis was already reaching for the improbable. She could probably get away with some of it too. She’d have to, really. It seemed they did their best work when challenged.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and want me to write something else you've been craving, consider commissioning me to write it for you! Send me an [ask on my tumblr if you want to keep it private](ashenpages.tumbr.com), or email me at fanficsbyash@gmail.com.
> 
> Seriously, I love writing this stuff for you all, so even if it's a tiny commission, hit me up. Writing fic that's specially designed to make you smile is my favorite thing to do, even if it's only a few hundred words long.


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